Stalin statue remains in place despite Russian court ruling

A monument to Joseph Stalin in the Russian city of Vologda will remain in place despite a court ruling that invalidated the contract under which it was installed, museum officials have said.

The Arbitration Court of the North-Western District ruled that the contract for the monument’s installation was unlawful, but the sculpture has since been transferred to the Vologda State Museum-Reserve for free use, according to its director general, Yuliya Yevseyeva.

Speaking to the Interfax news agency, Yevseyeva said the court’s decision had been fully implemented. “The court ruling has been executed, the money has been returned. Initially, we also returned the monument itself, but it is now in the museum’s free use under a movable property agreement,” she said.

She added that the statue would remain in its current location — the courtyard of the Vologda Exile house museum, a branch of the museum-reserve.

The monument was installed in December 2024 on the grounds of the museum, where Stalin lived while in exile between December 1911 and February 1912.

Earlier, the governor of Vologda Region, Georgy Filimonov, said the statue had led to a sharp increase in visitor numbers. In a post on Telegram, he wrote that attendance had risen by about 40%, from roughly 4,100 visitors last year to 5,700 this year, with many linking the rise in interest to the appearance of the Stalin monument.

The museum signed a contract in September 2024 worth 10.5 million roubles (≈ $136,500) with a sole supplier, entrepreneur Yekaterina Lozhenitsyna, for the production and installation of the statue. The procurement was conducted under Russia’s federal law on public contracts, which allows the use of a single supplier only in exceptional cases.

The regional prosecutor’s office challenged the contract in court, arguing that the single-supplier procedure was unjustified and that the price was inflated.

In July, the Vologda Regional Arbitration Court declared the contract invalid and ordered the monument to be returned to the supplier, while the museum was to be refunded the full amount. That ruling was upheld by an appellate court, and a subsequent cassation appeal by the museum-reserve was also rejected.

By Vugar Khalilov